Recent winners of the Burghausen European Young Artists’ Award 2011, Manchester’s very own Beats & Pieces Big Band are fast becoming one of the country’s most talked about jazz groups. Led by Ben Cottrell, its 14 members are drawn from some of the most exciting and in demand young musicians active in the UK today, all of whom met and began playing together whilst students in Manchester. This gig will be recorded for an album release in Autumn 2011 – its going to be a special night…
“They couple gale-force collective energy and confidence to startlingly original material (most of it by its rising-star leader Ben Cottrell) that acknowledges big-band traditions while radically modernising them.” John Fordham, The Guardian
“Their performance would have reassured anyone who wonders whether the big band tradition can connect with a twentysomething audience that knows its Radiohead but thinks that Stan Kenton is probably a window-cleaner in Coronation Street” Clive Davis, The Times
“Beats & Pieces is to the big band tradition what Polar Bear is to the saxophone led quartet” London Jazz Festival
“If ever there was a big band that sounded perfect for the 21st century young person, Beats & Pieces is it” Peter Bacon, thejazzbreakfast